Hearts are heavy as the Field Gunners prepare for Last Post

ON A BLEAK cinder track, in a lacerating wind off Spithead, the air blue with familiar expletives, not another spectator in sight, I knew I was still witnessing the toughest sport in the world.

For 20 years now I have written about, filmed and occasionally got drunk with these men, literally the salts of the earth. They are the Royal Navy's Field Gun runners whose stowing races have been the highlight of every Royal Tournament since 1907.

Alas, this year I watched their opening day's training with a heart almost as heavy as theirs. This year's Royal Tournament will be the last and with it, unless a saviour can be found to promote it elsewhere, will go the Field Gun Competition. Another unique element of British tradition will have been junked in the name of economy.

This, incidentally, will probably be denied by the Ministry of Defence as early as midday today.

Already it has instructed all Naval personnel to say nothing to the Press.

So read it here first.

On the evening of July 26 the Queen will take the salute at the last Royal Tournament. Up to 1,000 former Royal Naval Field Gunners will be present to witness two of the three divisional teams Portsmouth, Davenport, and Fleet Air Arm - haul their field guns and limbers into the arena to the tune of Hearts of Oak. It will be an emotional night.

Once a Field Gunner always a Field Gunner.

Bonded for life by the violence and brutality of a sport that leaves a trail of injuries and fingers amputated between the clash of steel upon steel.

Every Jack Tar among them is a volunteer. He receives no money above his regular service pay. He can claim no compensation for accidents. The physical tests to make the team are the most merciless and ferocious I have ever seen.

What follows is even tougher. No prima donna would ever survive it.

Sport? Yes, sport by the true Olympian definition.

Crazy? Certainly, but so are so many of the greatest British traditions.

The challenge, at the crack of a thunder flash, is to haul a field gun and limber weighing a little matter of 2,092lbs across obstacles that require them twice to be dismantled, hurled through small holes in walls and then, wireborn, over a 24ft chasm, twice firing volleys of three blanks in between.

Even with a full month's training I would challenge any rugby union, rugby league, American football, TV Gladiators or night-club bouncers team to accomplish this inside a quarter of an hour.

The standard time for a Royal Naval Field Gun team is two minutes 46 seconds.

Ironically, it is the sheer speed of it that may militate against finding another venue after this year's ultimate Royal Tournament.

Millions have watched it at Earls Court or on television down the years but no-one who has not been privy to the relentless time and motion analyses that yield such seamless teamwork has time to absorb its brilliance.

Every component evolution has been rehearsed and videoed a thousand times.

The videos are then studied to pare off one tenth of a second here and there.

What the public sees is a field gun barrel being thrown around as though it were balsa wood. For a lark some years ago we dropped it from a tree branch on to a clapped-out car. It cut the car in half.

Like so many British institutions, the Field Gun Race has its origins deeply imbedded in our history.

Exactly 100 years ago, at the height of the Boer War in South Africa, the British Army found itself outgunned and besieged in their garrison at Lady-smith, 800 miles inland from Durban. They sent frantic signals to the Royal N a v y f o r assistance.

Two Navy cruisers sped round the coast from their base near Cape Town, stripped their guns - precisely the same as the 12-pounder, 4.7inch weapons seen at Earls Court and overnight converted their mountings for land warfare.

They lifted the siege with a spectacular barrage and eventually returned home to parade the guns before cheering crowds in Portsmouth, London and then to Windsor Castle where Queen Victoria gave them lunch.

Seven years later, being British, they decided to commemorate the triumph by instituting the Field Gun Race as a sport at the Royal Tournament.

Apart from the war years it has been fiercely contested between divisions of the Royal Navy ever since.

Your last chance to witness it may well be at Earls Court between July 20 and August 2 this year.

Incidentally, if the Ministry of Defence wants to know what's going on in its own backyard, the Royal Tournament will be succeeded by an Army open air Tattoo on Horse Guards Parade next year. The Royal Navy Field Gun Competition cannot function outdoors.

Rain would transform its toys from dangerous to lethal.

I am not at liberty to quote a Royal Navy man on the future of the Field Gun Competition but there's no harm in passing on the sentiments of chief petty officer Pat Patilla, who ran six years at Earls Court and is now in charge of this year's Portsmouth team.

'Our motto,' he said, 'is "to the limit and beyond" and that is what is expected of all British servicemen.

I haven't the faintest clue what is going on about the Royal Tournament but I can tell you that the Field Gun has kept me in the Navy and there are plenty like me.' Field Gunning is not the most dangerous sport I have ever seen. There are also steeplechasing, skiing, motor racing, the Cresta Run, aerobatics and bullfighting.

It is simply the toughest to prepare for. These men are sincerely dangerous and, given a mugging situation, you'd like no-one better at your shoulder.